Six Takeaways From the Midterms

Overall, Republicans had a tough night Tuesday. When all is said and done, Democrats look to have gained around 35 seats in the House, seven governorships and over 330 state legislators. Yet as rough as it was, it could have been much worse for Republicans. In Barack Obama’s first mid-term in 2010, Republicans picked up 63 House seats and 700 state legislative seats -- numbers that were not out of the question for Democrats for a large portion of this cycle. In the Senate, Republicans actually expanded their majority -- as it appears they will pick up 3 seats -- whereas Democrats lost 6 seats in the 2010 midterms.

In many ways, it was a strange election.  If you had told me in August that Democrats were going to win more than 30 House seats, I would have bet a large amount of money that the Senate would also be in play.  I would have a difficult time accepting that Florida would elect Ron DeSantis governor and (as it now appears) Rick Scott as senator.  The notion that Ohio’s Senate race would fall into the mid-single digits, that Mike DeWine would win the Ohio governor’s race handily, or that Michigan’s Senate race would be decided by fewer than seven points all would have seemed ludicrous.  Martha McSally keeping Arizona close (and possibly winning) would not seem possible.

Nevertheless, Democrats accomplished something that seemed impossible in early 2017: They took control of the House of Representatives; they picked up multiple governorships, including knocking off the governor they probably loathe most, Scott Walker;  and they flipped some important state houses, including the New York state Senate, which gives them complete control of New York state government.

Some factors to consider:

The GOP got killed in the suburbs. We can place Republican losses into three broad buckets: “perennial swing seats” (Colorado’s 6th, Arizona’s 2nd), “sleeping/problematic candidates” (Oklahoma’s 5th, South Carolina’s 1st), and suburban districts.  This last category is by far the broadest, and it accounts for around two-thirds of the Republicans’ losses.  This is a significant long-term problem for the party if it continues.

This probably doesn’t count as a wave. If you look at the Index I referenced on Monday, our preliminary results suggest that things have moved about 23 points toward Democrats.  That’s a substantial shift, but it falls short of even “semi-wave elections” such as 2014 (a shift of 26 points toward Republicans) and 2006 (a movement of 30 points toward Democrats).  Obviously, as results trickle in this might shift further, but probably not by much.